Getting rid of harsh, shrill treble


I cannot play my classical cd's at a volume where the midrange and bass come through without harsh, shrill treble, especially the violins. I have bookshelf speakers on stands and subwoofer in a small 120 sq. ft. room. I have no treble control on my pre-amp. I tried a Taddeo passive Digital Antidote II between my CD player and pre-amp with minimal result. I have a solid state integrated amp, will switching to a tube integrated amp cure this problem or is it my speakers?
classical_fred

Showing 1 response by rodargent

Wow. I tend to think that the harshness or the shrillness is the actual sound that was captured in the performance or in that recording process. Not all recorded music is soothing or smooth. An unwelcome quality of sound is appropriate depending upon the listener I would imagine. Having a solid state amplifier at 15 watts per channel with 2-way bookshelf speakers on stands in a similarly small listening room I too experience "harsh, shrill treble" at times but it appears to be more of a source problem than a system failure. Some CD recordings of the same music on different CD's sound better than others. Some CD's just sound bad no matter where you play them. Saying that, I do check connections when I hear unexpected harshness and will use a contact cleaner every few months (Kontakt) on cables and speaker connections and on AC plugs as well. This appears to smooth the contact prone harshness. I also clean the CD's when necessary and some shrillness or harshness does go away on some discs. I agree with other responses that suggest speakers have a lot to do with what you will actually hear especially in two-way configurations with a cross over and how efficient those speakers are with that particular amplifier. I would take that CD with the objectionable violin passage to my local stereo dealer and hear it on their house McIntosh and Martin Logan system and compare it to what I've got. It might be just as shrill. Or, I would purchase the same CD and see if the newer recording sounds better than the older, harsher CD. That fix is pretty cheap compared to other options. Just a thought.